Im searching for my long-ago pen pal Sharon Yarian (born in 1945) who lived in South Dakota. Ive tried every search engine on the internet, SD genealogists, SD newspapers and colleges. So, I turn to the six degrees of separation theory. Anybody out there know Sharon Yarian? My First Pen Pal Ive always loved to get letters. My childhood memories include siting in the rusted metal swing on our South Carolina front porch waiting for the mailman to arrive. “Any mail for me today, Mr. Tuley?” I’d ask, as soon as he opened our front gate. “Nah, nothing with a South Dakota postmark today,” he said, more times than not. But some days, he’d smile and hand me an envelope with my name and address written in Sharon Yarian’s familiar script. I’d tear open the envelope and be transported to a place far away from my South Carolina hometown. Sharon Yarian and I were in junior high school when The Weekly Reader matched us up in a national project designed to teach children more about the geography of the United States. Sharon lived on a dairy farm in South Dakota and regaled me with stories about making snow angels, milking cows and churning butter and cheese. I, in turn, wrote about cotton fields, pecan trees, and Cypress Swamp at the edge of town where moss like old men’s hoary beards dangled from trees growing in the murky water. Sharon always ended her letters with, “Please write back soon, I can hardly wait for your letters. They’re so interesting!” As time passed, our letters exceeded the boundaries of geography and race. I can’t remember when I told Sharon that if she lived in the South, my brown skin would have kept us apart; nor can I remember her response. I do remember however, that we became friends and for several years, exchanged the secrets that teenage girls share. In my senior year, when I told my mother that I wanted to go to South Dakota State College, where Sharon planned to enroll, she said, “You go to a white school like that, you’ll never have any social life. White boys won’t ask you out.” I argued with my mother, but sent my only college application to a historically black College in Baltimore, Maryland. Sharon and I vowed that one day, we’d find a way to meet. Near the end of my senior year, my mother suddenly died. Amidst the emotional turmoil, my letters to Sharon ceased. Days after graduation, I left South Carolina and forever lost touch with my first pen-pal.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 02:26:08 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015